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Message from the Dean

130 Years, Millions of Lives

The complex global challenges of our age have yielded developments in genetics, biology, communications, and the environment, which in turn have opened countless avenues for research, practice and new partnerships. We’re undergoing a revolution in our understanding of areas as diverse as molecular epidemiology, nanotechnology, health care quality, the dynamics of health behavior, public health genomics, and the interrelationship of ethnicity, culture, and health.

At the University of Michigan School of Public Health, these developments are a part of everyday life. For more than a century, this university has been a leader in public health scholarship, teaching, and service, and that legacy continues today. Through work on vaccines, health policy and administration, statistical genetics, chronic disease, socioeconomic disparities, global health, environmental science, and an array of other issues, the UM SPH community has saved millions of lives. It is a profound honor and a joy to be part of such a tradition.

Today’s public health issues are indeed complex, and they require collaboration across campus, with community and academic partners around the world, and with both public and private decision-makers. We have much to learn about what makes us susceptible to many diseases, what we can do to promote good health and well being, and how to manage the long-term consequences of ill health.

Immense challenges remain, but our capacity for the work and our passion for making the world a healthier place are equally immense. Please join us. Together, we are creating solutions and policies to address the public health problems of our time. We are working on difficult issues, developing and sharing solutions to common dilemmas, and implementing common-sense, sustainable interventions here and abroad. We are finding new and creative ways to bring scholarly discovery to actual public health practice in the field, and we are improving the health and well-being of citizens in Michigan, the Great Lakes region, nationally and globally.

Our future depends on it.

Martin Philbert
Dean, UM School of Public Health

Catch the Dean in this webcast:

• Nanotechnology Unplugged: No PowerPoint, no script; just stimulating conversation

Martin Philbert, Dean of the University of Michigan School of Public Health

Read a report, as of mid-2012, on Dean Philbert's plans and progress in the direction of innovation at SPH (PDF).

Letters From the Dean, in Findings magazine

• The Governance We Need
  fall/winter 2012

• A Bridge to the World, spring/summer 2012

• Stress, Big and Little, fall/winter 2011

• The Acid Test, spring/summer 2011